f13.net

Free issues down until further notice:

http://marvel.com/news/story/20260/sxsw_2013_marvel_1_updated


The Marvel Comics mobile app (iOS and Android Google Play) has over 700 #1 issues available for free for download RIGHT NOW. This will supposedly end tomorrow (Tuesday). Their backend system has been hammered the last couple of days. It took me well over 50 tries to register an account and a few dozen attempts to login with said account. At the moment "purchases" of the free issues are incredibly slow to go through and downloads almost always fail. However if you can get the purchases through the system in time you should be able to download the issues when the system is less borked. But you better start right now given how slow things are at the moment.

Store is down :oh_i_see:

I think in a way they were counting on this--it's kind of a trick designed to get people to sign up and look at the store, and maybe get a few free comics here and there. They know that there will be so much traffic that nobody will get more than a small fraction of what they might be looking for.

I signed up for the Comixology email update that would tell me when this shit was available again.

Except I don't think it was ever available from Comixology--that, I suspect, is the whole point: now that digital comics are selling pretty well, Marvel wants to cut out the middleman and sell direct via their own app.

I have been buying digital comics via the Marvel app for at least 1 year now. Is this a new app?

Wow, I take it back--Comixology did have the deal too. That's interesting. I'm too cynical.

Yeah, it's a new app (the Marvel one). But also Comixology is pretty damn good. I've pretty well gone over entirely to digital--I don't miss the trips to the comic store at all and I'm actually starting to like reading in a digital format.

If the notion of paying the same price for a digital vs a physical product didn't make me see red I might look at letting my son get some regular comics.

After my last trip to the local comic store I totally get the aversion to going there, though.  I saw a segment of society that really isn't stereotyped when portrayed and it terrified me.

The Marvel app isn't particularly new, unless they've launched a newer one than the one I've been using. DC had an app, but I grabbed it and it seems to be pretty shit. (The Marvel app lets me pay for shit via my iTunes account without setting up a new account.) I will have to check out Comixology.

We still like going to the comic store because my daughter enjoys the weekly trip. She's also well-liked by the staff at the shop, so it's a fun time for her each week.

Comixology is pretty good, but yes, I have a serious aversion to paying the same price for a digital comic as I would a physical one. Even with the enhancements they make so that is reads better (instead of just being one great big whopping JPG that I scroll around on), I don't think it should be priced at the same level. In fact, while the enhancements are nice, they aren't necessary at all.

BTW, the DC/Marvel/etc is just a reskinned Comixology app, in essence.

Marvel does have a new app called "Marvel Unlimited" which is their subscription-based app.